Any E-Tec owners ....come talk me off the ledge!

[m.taylor]

A friend of mine has a 150 E-Tec on their ski boat, it's scary quick.

 

[Underwater Ogre]

Well the 96 2 stroke Merc 150XL finally gave up the ghost ... so I bought a new Evinrude E-TEC 150HP outboard to replace it ... being installed this week.

Anyone own one ?

Pros and Cons please?

A bit pricey I guess considering ... but not too many good reviews on the OptiMax ..

AHHH...I am banging my head against the desk!! I wish I would have seen this thread before...
We have had nothing but problems with all the E-Tecs we bought...all 16 of them!! Some I couldn't even sell used, we have to trade them in on Honda for pennies on the dollar.

The common problems were:

150 - blowing heads, electrical ignition
200 - blowing heads
90 - electrical problems...
1 - 150 was towed a total of 2 hours for every 15 minutes of run time. Good thing we put it on the hard after 4 hours...the service shop never did figure out what was wrong with it. We finally gave up and installed a Honda 115.

Of course being commercial they limited our warranty to the door. Our average is 1000 hours a year on a motor of course some being more and some being less....not all have a 1000.

We traded out all them for Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki, depending on what the dept. preference was.

I have to say "bang for the buck" is the Suzuki.

Good luck...I hope you have better luck then we did. I know we will never buy another Evinrude.

U/O

 

[Skull]

Ok folks ... took her out for the first sea trial on the San Diego Bay ... slight wind chop and a few Navy ships coming and going laying out some big wake/bow waves.

E-Tec is ~ 99% quieter than my old Merc 2 stroke 150 at idle. At 3500 rpm it was humming nicely ... plenty of torque. I down sized the prop from a 19 to a 17" for increased torque at the expense of speed. Reasoning is I can't safely get above 20 knots with all my gear on board so why not have more torque to move all that dive gear in moderate swells.

At 4500-5000 rpms she was amazingly smooth and strong ... and 66% quieter than my Old Merc.
Got to around 27-30 knots and she started to slip so I backed it down to 24 knots and that is definitely the sweet spot for my hull and E-tec ... She jumps out of the hole like a frog on a asphalt driveway ..amazing compared to my Old Merc.

 

[Underwater Ogre]

Great to hear..."crossing my fingers and toes for you"

U/O

 

[Skull]

Great to hear..."crossing my fingers and toes for you"

U/O

after I cut the check for the install and then read your experience with them ... I am crossing mine too.. However I gotta tell you an encouraging thing happened on the way to the ramp ... drove past a Vessel Assist Boat with Twin E-Tec 225 on it ...asked the skipper what he thought about his E-Tecs ... he said they have had no out of the ordinary maintenance issues with them ... so that made me breath a sigh of relief.


Course for them what is ordinary maintenance issues ....yikes???

 

[Hank49]

I'm a little late on this one. I have a 2006 90hp Etec, saltwater edition which means a few parts are stainless steel instead of cast iron, or so I read. It's mounted on a 25 foot, high bow skiff.
Mechanically the motor has been flawless. Never had a problem so far. Did change the tilt switch that's mounted on the motor when I saw a line of rust coming out of it.
The one thing that's not good is the paint on the lower unit. Maybe because I put a stainless prop? But the paint has bubbled in many places. I've since replaced the SS prop with the stock one but the bubbling continues.
I researched the 90 hp in 06 before I bought. At that time I read that the bigger ETECs were having problems but no one had anything bad to say about the 90.

 

[Hank49]

What size prop ? w/ 90HP .. I read somewhere that you are partial to 90hp 2 stroke OB.

Mfg of my boat recommends a 150 HP (max for the design is 175 which I feel is too much motor for this boat (201 ProLine Cuddy---fiberglass)) I really liked my Merc but it was a gas hog ...ample top end speed for SoCal fishing , but when I was loaded up with divers w/ doubles she struggled in moderate swells. Very dry ride but reality is it's tough to do more than 22-25 kts while on a fish trip ... 12-15kts w/ 3 divers... ride is just too rough.

Mechanic recommends I try a 17" prop on the new motor ... the old Merc had a 19" ...any suggestions?

Get a prop that allows the motor to hit its maximum rated rpms at the normal, or average load at which you operate.
Sounds like the old Merc could have used a 17 if it was dogging with a 19. If your prop is a little small, you can always just throttle down when running a light load. If it's too big and you can't hit max rpms, you're going to put more stress on your motor.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

I'm a little late on this one. I have a 2006 90hp Etec, saltwater edition which means a few parts are stainless steel instead of cast iron, or so I read. It's mounted on a 25 foot, high bow skiff.
Mechanically the motor has been flawless. Never had a problem so far. Did change the tilt switch that's mounted on the motor when I saw a line of rust coming out of it.
The one thing that's not good is the paint on the lower unit. Maybe because I put a stainless prop? But the paint has bubbled in many places. I've since replaced the SS prop with the stock one but the bubbling continues.
I researched the 90 hp in 06 before I bought. At that time I read that the bigger ETECs were having problems but no one had anything bad to say about the 90.

Is the boat kept in a slip or on a trailer? How are the zincs?
I'd be looking for an electrolysis problem.

 

[Hank49]

Is the boat kept in a slip or on a trailer? How are the zincs?
I'd be looking for an electrolysis problem.

Stays out of the water under my house and is washed thoroughly after every use. It started bubbling within a year. I put the ss prop on as soon as I got it though.
I scrape the zinc every few months. It's not shrunken down really small.
I thought maybe the zinc stopped working because of the reaction with the ss prop? But my Yamaha didn't do that. ??
Also the stock prop, which I kept as a spare in my console had also peeled really badly after a couple years.

 

[Skull]

I had the shop install a 17" ss prop. Soon as the weather breaks and I can get time to dive I'll report back with the boat loaded ...

Again the trial on the bay was encouraging ...but it was just me and no real load on the motor.